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Expect the Mac App Store to offer plenty of cheap iOS apps

With just two days until Apple is set to unveil the Mac App Store, details are still thin on the ground as to what we can actually expect from it. It turns out that we might be seeing plenty of inexpensive ports of iOS apps.

TUAW reports today on a survey which hints at how developers are approaching their apps for the Mac store. Markus Nigrin of Windmill Apps asked four fellow developers well known for their iOS apps about their plans for the new store. All four are set to bring iOS titles over to the new store.

According to the developers, iOS apps tend to take less than four weeks to port over to Mac and most of that time is spent optimising them for the different display size and keyboard, mouse or trackpad control. Price-wise, they’re aiming cheap with three of the four developers planning to keep their apps at the same price as their iOS counterparts. The fourth developer plans to charge just $1 more.

The developers’ expectations vary as to how much they’ll make from these apps, ranging from 10% to 200% of the return they got on the iOS equivalents, but if it’s as quick and easy to port from iOS as they say, we could well be looking at a flood of iPhone games making their way across in the coming weeks and months.

How well many of these apps will translate to when removed of their touchscreen control systems remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure – if Flight Control (which would work well with a mouse) gets ported over, my productivity’s in for a kicking. UPDATE: As David Purser comments below, my productivity is indeed doomed.